Video game Unravel explores the ties that bind and the connections that got lost along the way
The platform/puzzle game has deep aspirations and motivations, as its star Yarny, a little figure made of red string, works to bridge the gaps that can grow between families and friends
Meet Yarny. Yarny doesn’t look like much at a quick glance. Yarny is red, about the size of your index finger, with an alien, triangular face and nimble body made up of a single piece of, well, yarn.
Yarny is quite fragile. Keep Yarny out of water, and don’t let Yarny near a critter. A crab’s claw will wreak havoc on Yarny.
Yarny is also full of personality, the standout star of a new video game called Unravel. Those old family photographs collecting dust on a bookshelf? Yarny wants to explore them, transport inside them and make old connections feel new again. Among Yarny’s likes is nostalgia. Dislikes? Families that drift apart.
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Unravel, developed by a small team at Coldwood Interactive in the northern Sweden town of Umeå and published by video game giant Electronic Arts, is about memories, the small moments that have been forgotten but shouldn’t be.
Say, the tire swing in the backyard. Or the knick-knacks that populate the garage near a seaside family getaway. Or the way an old rickety wooden lawn chair would suddenly collapse without warning. Yarny gets up close and personal with such objects, swinging or lassoing his yarn around rocks, gardens, old soda cans and apple trees like a grand adventurer. Yarny tiptoes around rust, brings to life an old boat and bounds around berries.
His mission, though, is not to find some artefact or uncover a vast conspiracy. Yarny simply wants the player to pause and reflect, to think not necessarily of better times but of good times that shouldn’t be lost. It’s a little melancholic.